


Marker 450

by Kasea



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dark Arthur, Dark Merlin, M/M, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 11:24:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4704365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kasea/pseuds/Kasea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur Pendragon. A dangerous, volatile rebel, with hands stained bloodred. Merlin.<br/>A banished sorcerer whose very existence has been erased. The time of vengeance has only gotten started. And Arthur has his eyes set on this sorcerer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Violent Clothing

The vastness of the world struck a chord inside him. A hollow humming of an oncoming storm. Uther has denied him authority to save him let alone walk free outside his own home. 

Arthur rubbed the dark convoluted substance between his gloved fingers to remind himself how much blood had spilled in the fight for his freedom. Now, he was hunted. The death blows has been struck. He had killed. He knew in his consciousness he must repay. 

But a cold fire ricketed at the thought of an unaccomplished task. His burning selfish need for him far outweighed his noble breeding. He glanced at the passing faces of the people walking past him then to his hands and he thought, what would he think of me now? 

\---------------

It has been 400 days 5 weeks and 23 days since the capture.

Merlin heard a voice outside his head. From inside his white-walled prison, the sounds ricocheted thunderously from the hallways. 

Hey what is happening? ' He tried to say. But nothing echoed in his small room. He even imagined himself walking towards the glossy door with bars for a window on the top. But no muscle seemed to abide. Everything stopped moving and hurting since the 112th day of the second week and thirtieth day.

He lay on the left side of his shoulder for 28 hours. Another 7 more and he will turn for the right side. At that thought, a click and pinging noise came from the entrance. His muscles mechanically braced for further unwanted advances but the clinical smell of mint and decay hadn't come. A black spot ruined his sight tempting to break his concentration but no matter. He will not break. 

Merlin stared at a recessed spot across his bed. The one he had been staring ever since he started throwing punches at it and broke bones. A slow soft brush dared against his dry cheek and he blinked and released a breath. He will not break. Hard metal corded around his shoulders then under his knees and he lost it. 

The part of him holding to keep his dignity forever lost in the past. He flailed and fought against a brick wall and he must have yelled because his throat felt raw.

Red lights flashed across his eyesight. There was the smell of smoke like gunfire but he couldn't hear a thing with the angry thundering shouts and blaring alarms.

Registering this as a nightmare, he came to the conclusion that a fight was technically useless. The ball of his fists softened, his jaw began to unhinged and Merlin closed his eyes.

At that moment of compliance to his nightmare, it gripped him harder like it had no thought of letting go. The nightmare didn't chill him like it used to, tonight, his nightmare oddly smelled of gunfire with the sunny warmth of Camelot's summer breeze.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Merlin's POV

They were sitting close to each other, their shoulders nearly touching.

"Would it make any difference?"

"I'm not entirely sure" Merlin's face was crestfallen. The wind outside the cabin roared more furiously as if the agitating tension inside the cabin wasn't enough to power a tesla coil.

It was hours later after they had rescued Aethusa just as night began to steal the hours away and with it the last remaining dragon on earth's life force.

"I have to try, Arthur"

"Either way, it doesn't sound good for you."

"Will you wait for me?"

"For a clotpole? Not in a million years" Arthurs voice held the cadence of hopeful humor

Merlin's lips tightened and he stared down to his closed clasped fists, "It's not a request .. i-it's not th-" an arm wrapped around his shoulder. Arthur's forehead falling to his temples in quiet compliance that spoke volumes

The rain had gone away and with it, gone was their hope for a great future together. War don't end well, you see. And once again, Merlin has to do the last fatal sacrifice.

 

\-------------------

 

I tried out his name. It vibrated low and dry in my throat. His eyes snapped to me with caution, disdain, and knowing him, a bit of anger. He seemed to recognize his name but I felt it all wrong like a distortion. Here was a man before me who looked like he hadn't lifted the sides of his mouth for a lifetime with an anger of indignation.

I searched again more slowly to the planes of his face. Searching for the familiar clear, open, mocking, soldier of a man who once told me the deep recesses of his fears.

Gwaine then coughed in an imprresive way to break the silence, "Arthur, now might be a good time to let him recover first"

"Where am I?" I asked. I reached out to what seems like an incorrect illusion of the man I had loved for years with the back of my hand. It seemed to agitate him more. A dark emotion pooled behind his eyes like a living thing before he stood and turned to the door and left.

"Merlin, we had evacuated you from Frederick's" rather forcefully, I thought. Having remembered the blaring alarms and smell of gunpowder. "Lancelot, Arthur and I are the ones who have deployed the mission. No one else knows about this. We are currently at an unlisted cabin in the far boundaries of Galway. Food is fully stocked in the kitchen when you're ready. You should go ahead and take some more rest."

Gwaine spoke in that terse, clipped no-nonsense manner he only usually reserves to absolutely nobody. But he had, the one right in front of him that is. And that scared him more. Merlin's memories of Camelot was mainly of Arthur, adventure, and his gaily blunt friends. This was a poor mimic of it.

I ran my tongue on the back of my teeth and prepared to speak but Gwaine was already gone with an echoing slam of the door.


End file.
